


Beam Dynamics

by st4rlabsforever (omaken)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:48:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omaken/pseuds/st4rlabsforever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...Cisco was still trying to process that he’d just made out with the Flash. In front of the Large Hadron Collider. This was definitely one to tell the grandkids."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beam Dynamics

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: "barry and cisco meeting in college?"
> 
> i did the bare-minimum. sorry not sorry anon!

Barry got the idea one night when the two of them were hanging out at Cisco’s apartment. 

He lamented that he and Cisco had been drifting apart lately – nothing tangible, but Barry had been busy, what with the metas and Zoom and trying to squeeze in bonding time with Wally. 

This was actually the first time he’d ever been inside Cisco’s apartment. He perused the photos adorning the wall: tons with Caitlin and Ronnie, a few with the old Wells, and some more recent-looking ones with Dante. He grinned when he saw the selfie in front of S.T.A.R. Labs on Earth-2, and—was that Iris and Joe? On closer inspection, there were quite of few shots of him with Joe making goofy faces in the CCPD break room and one of Iris and Cisco with the entire metahuman taskforce. 

He winced internally. Wasn’t he supposed to be Cisco’s best friend? And yet, he’d somehow done his best to rebuff all of Cisco’s lighthearted requests to grab a drink after work or go out to a movie lately. All they had to show for two years of friendship was a single selfie? He’d chalk it up to stress, but somehow Cisco was managing to have a social life despite having the same CCPD and Team Flash workload as him.

 _Stupid_ , he thought to himself.

But he could fix this. He vowed to set aside a day this weekend for Cisco, only now that he thought about it, it felt like he hardly knew Cisco at all. 

Sure, he knew Cisco’s order at Big Belly Burger by heart – a double double with extra onion and a Coke with crushed ice (Barry still wasn’t entirely sure on the chemistry behind that one, even though Cisco had fervently explained it to him multiple times). And the two of them had quickly developed an easygoing rapport, but when he really thought about it, he barely knew any details about Cisco’s life.

He scoured his brain for any stray details, but came up with zilch. Was Cisco actually born in Central City? How many grades did he skip? Where did he go to college? These were things Barry knew he should definitely know – Cisco could certainly answer all those questions about Barry – but just somehow, didn’t. Hell, the only reason he knew Cisco had a brother was because the two of them had been tortured at the hands of Captain Cold.

“Dude, everything alright in there?” Cisco waved a hand in front of his face.

“Uh…?” Barry said eloquently. “What were you saying again?”

Cisco rolled his eyes affectionately. 

“I was saying you gotta check out this one.” He pointed to a framed picture of himself giving a presentation and gesturing to a giant poster and-

“Wait. Was this at an APS conference?”

“Yeah, back in March of-“

“2010,” Barry finished.

Cisco raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know that?”

“ _Dude_ ,” Barry said in wonder. “I was _there_.”

He was squinting at the photo to make out the lettering on the poster board. “You gave that presentation on beam dynamics and accelerator physics. That was incredible, I can’t believe I didn’t remember you.”

Cisco rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s mutual then, because I definitely don’t remember you. And I grew my hair out the next year and kept it like this ever since I passed my dissertation. But anyway, you might have been the only one to think that…everyone else laughed at that presentation and told me I was crazy.”

Barry scrunched his eyebrows.

“The head of CERN was there and I was hoping to impress him, but I don’t think he even noticed me,” Cisco said wistfully.

“CERN?”

“Yeah, the place in Switzer-“

“No, I know what it is. I mean, why CERN? S.T.A.R. Labs is like, ten times more high-tech, at _least_.”

“Yeah, but tell that to 18-year-old me. It used to be my dream to work there. I still want to see what it’s like inside, to be honest…but it wasn’t all bad. That was the day Harrison Wells noticed me.”

And that was how the beginnings of a plan were rapidly beginning to fall in place. With super-speed thinking, he mostly had everything planned out in the next few seconds, but would need a few days to get all the details down.

“Seriously, you okay? You’ve been kinda spacey all night,” Cisco said as he placed the back of his hand on Barry’s forehead.

Barry shooed him off as he shrugged on his jacket.

“Gotta go, but clear your schedule this weekend, okay?”

He sped off as soon as Cisco gave him a nod, leaving only confusion in his wake.

 

* * *

 

Through no fault of his own, Cisco grew more and more confused as the week went on. 

First, Barry had asked him to make a month’s supply of those speedster protein bars. Then, he’d zipped into the lab in the suit looking like he’d gotten into a battle with a whirlpool and lost.

That was Wednesday.

Today, he’d sped into the Cortex during his lunch break with one of those fancy-looking cameras all the CSIs used to photograph evidence and dragged Cisco away, asking him to pose for a portrait.

 

(“No, too much teeth,” he’d said.

“Try to look neutral. Okay, perfect!”

He had given Cisco a megawatt smile and zoomed off without so much as an explanation. Caitlin and Jay had just shrugged it off.)

 

When he saw Barry during normal hours, the latter did his best to act like everything was perfectly normal, which, in the world of Barry Allen, was the smoking red flag that things were completely and utterly not okay. But Barry was tight-lipped and in a genuinely cheery mood, so Cisco wasn’t pushing.

 

* * *

 

Finally, Saturday arrived and Cisco was (quite rudely, thank you very much) woken up by a hand frantically shaking his shoulder. 

“Wha…?”

He blinked a few times as his room materialized in front of him.

“Barry? How the hell did you get in here?”

Barry looked at him like he was being particularly dense. “I phased through the door. Come on, dude, we’re gonna be late.”

Apparently, Cisco’s sleep-addled body was taking too long for Barry, because the next thing he knew, his room was a blur of color.

He blinked, his brain taking a moment to catch up to what just happened. When he looked down, he was in clean pair of jeans and a graphic tee.

And he blushed when he realized the implications of it. “What?! You can’t just, go and change people’s clothes like that,” he sputtered.

“I didn’t look,” Barry said dismissively. “Are you ready yet?” He was shifting from foot to foot and fidgeting like he was about to pick Cisco up and carry him away before he even answered.

Cisco groaned. “I still need to brush my teeth.”

Barry rolled his eyes and the world exploded in a rush of wind again and – what the fuck? Was Barry brushing his teeth for him? That was definitely Barry brushing his teeth for him. He barely had a chance to process the sensation before it was over.

When he looked up, he was staring at himself in the mirror and Barry was right next to him, a smug eyebrow raised on his stupid face.

And okay, this was definitely about to be his supervillain origin story if Barry didn’t chill the fuck out. Although whatever had Barry this excited was actually intriguing Cisco, loathe as he was to admit it.

He sighed. “Alright. Do your thing.”

Barry zipped away and back and tossed a light backpack into his arms.

“Hold this,” he said.

And then they were off.

Cisco was a bit surprised when the seconds turned into minutes and they were still running. Usually, when Barry gave him a lift, it was for quick little trips – like getting from S.T.A.R. Labs to CCPD on time – which, given Barry’s speed and the size of Central City, lasted only a few seconds.

They were moving far too fast for Cisco to make out any of their surroundings, but after the initial blast of wind, everything settled down for some inexplicable reason and the ride was actually pretty pleasant.

And then he realized how tired he was, because it was fucking early and he’d gotten two hours of sleep that night before Barry had so rudely woken him, and he drifted right off to sleep again.

 

* * *

 

The rush of wind that slapped him in the face startled him awake.

“Sorry, just needed a snack break,” Barry said by way of explanation.

Cisco pushed his arms to the ground to lift himself up and realized he was sitting on…sand? A second later, he noticed the sound of crashing waves.

“Where are we?”

“Somewhere in Maine,” Barry said, pointing to the sign behind them. _Welcome to Quoddy Head State Park, Maine_. He scarfed down a couple of protein bars in rapid succession.

“So, are you gonna tell me where we’re going?”

“Nope,” Barry said breezily. “Ready to keep going?”

He stretched out his gangly limbs before heading over to the shoreline.

“Whoa, hey! That’s the Atlantic in front of us. Where are we going?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been practicing all week,” Barry replied, as if that was in any way reassuring.

“Wait, is that why I had to repair the suit from water damage like, every other day last week?”

Barry shrugged. “I’ve got it all figured out now.”

“Oh my god.”

Barry scooped him up bridal style and they were zipping off again.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, that will never not be cool,” Cisco said when they stopped briefly on the deck of a military vessel so Barry could refuel.

Barry beamed.

“Alright, we’re almost there I think.”

“You _think_?”

“It’s not like I have a map or something, I’m not a sailor.” Barry scratched his head.

Cisco smacked his forehead.

“Let’s just get out of here. We have an audience.”

The crew was starting to gather around, snapping pictures on their phones and ogling at Barry. Cisco was honestly surprised they hadn’t been kicked off or arrested yet, although he supposed Barry being in the suit helped matters somewhat – there probably wasn’t anyone in the world who hadn’t heard of the Flash and his exploits at this point.

“Seriously? I’m wearing the mask. And besides, it’s not like any of them are going to remember us.”

Somehow, Cisco doubted that. Barry scooped him up as some of the crew let off wolf whistles.

 

* * *

 

When they finally stopped, Cisco was standing in front of a set of sleek buildings.

“Is this – oh my _god_ ,” he trilled.

“Wait here,” Barry said.

He disappeared in a flash of lightning and was back a minute later in his civvies.

“Here, put these on,” he said, passing Cisco a lab coat and an ID card. On closer inspection, he saw the card contained the picture of him that Barry had taken earlier in the week.

“Francisco Ramon. Senior lab technician. CERN? Dude. _How?_ ”

“I might’ve snuck in and added us to the directory,” Barry said sheepishly.

“It would’ve been easier to just phase in, but…I don’t think I can phase other people with me, sorry,” he added, as if he somehow did something wrong instead of literally the most amazing thing Cisco could’ve ever asked for.

Cisco told him that after he scrounged together enough brain cells to stop fangirling, because who was he kidding, that was what he was doing.

“So, should we check it out?” he asked finally.

“Oh, right!” Barry donned a matching lab coat and ID card, although Cisco noted that he hadn’t restricted himself to the no-smiling rule.

“Okay, ready.”

Cisco snorted. “I always forget your real name is Bartholomew.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Francisco. Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you _sure_ you know where you’re going?”

“Relax, I memorized the map.”

“Really? Then how come there’s another one of these security doors in front of us?”

Barry groaned before flashing through and hitting the access panel from the other side. They had decided that trying to swipe their cards on the restricted access doors probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.

“Okay, that should be the last one,” Barry said as the doors slid open.

“Bruh, you said that three doors ago.”

But that was okay, because Cisco felt like a child in Candyland right now as they walked through the halls. He froze when he saw what was in front of him.

“Wait, wait, wait, is that-“

“Yup.” Barry popped the ‘p’ at the end, looking proud of himself.

“-the Large-“

“Yeah.”

“-Hadron Collider?!”

If he was fangirling before, then the English language didn’t have words yet for what he was doing now.

To his credit, Barry didn’t comment, mostly because he was as excited as Cisco was.

“Can we just walk in here though? I mean, aren’t there going to be people working here?” he asked, looking around at the empty chamber.

“About that…” Barry rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. “I might have scheduled a safety seminar through their email listserv…”

Cisco clapped him on the back. “You’re the man with the plan.”

He was jumping around, torn between touching and not touching, still freaking the fuck out because he was in motherfucking _CERN_ when four hours ago he was in his dingy little apartment in Central City.

Now, Cisco couldn’t be blamed for what happened next. If you asked him after the fact, he would’ve said it was the excitement and elation that shorted out his brain, because he leaned over and gave Barry a quick peck on the lips.

And that was when his brain came back on line. He froze.

Barry looked like a deer in headlights.

Shit, shit, shit.

He’d always thought Barry was attractive in that off-limits way, what with Iris, then Linda and Patty, and now he’d gone and ruined it. Dammit, things were going to be awkward between them and he just ruined one of the best things to happen to him since signing on to work at S.T.A.R.

“S-sorry,” Cisco said, much more high-pitched than he would’ve liked. “I’ll just, uh, go now…”

_WHOOSH._

Suddenly, his back was against the wall and Barry was kissing him back. Aggressively.

“This okay?” Barry asked when he finally pulled away.

“Uh…” Cisco was in a daze. He skipped the answer part and dived right back in.

Barry trailed eager fingers over him, giving a full-body vibration that had Cisco shuddering in anticipation.

“Ahem.”

They jumped apart as fast as regular speed would allow.

“Uh, sorry?” Cisco said, blushing furiously. Apparently Barry was at an even greater loss for words than he was because he didn’t seem like he would regain speech any time soon.

The lab tech rolled his eyes before whirling haughtily out of the room, not bothering to hide his accented ‘ _The children they hire these days, I swear_ ’ on the way out.

Cisco stared after him for a long moment before turning back to Barry.

“So uh, can we talk about what happened?”

“Later?” Barry asked. And Cisco couldn’t help that his heart stuttered when he noticed Barry lick his lips.

“Later,” Cisco agreed.

And Barry whisked them away to a more secluded location all the while Cisco was still trying to process that he’d just made out with the Flash. In front of the Large Hadron Collider.

This was definitely one to tell the grandkids.


End file.
